Juan Somavía Altamirano (born April 11, 1941) is the former Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO). He was elected to serve as the ninth Director-General of the ILO by the Governing Body on 23 March 1998. On 7 November 2013, he was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to serve as Special Adviser on Interregional Policy Cooperation.
Term as Director-General
His five-year term of office began on 4 March 1999, when he became the first representative from the Southern hemisphere to head the organization. In March 2003, Somavia was re-elected for a second five-year term. He was re-elected for a third five-year term in November 2008.
Since taking office in 1999, Somavía has taken up the challenge that the rapidly changing economy presents to the ILO. In 1999, he submitted his Decent Work Agenda to the International Labour Conference, which was subsequently endorsed by the Governing Body and the Conference.
The work of the Office has been reorganized around four strategic objectives that make it possible to establish targets and indicators to measure progress and provide the basis of accountability: employment creation, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue.
Background
An attorney by profession, Somavía has had a long and distinguished career in civil and international affairs. His wide experience in all areas of public life – as a diplomat and academic – and his involvement in social development, business and civil organizations have all helped shape his vision of the need to secure decent work for women and men throughout the world.
The following is a list of the positions he held in the United Nations and other inter-governmental organizations before joining the ILO: 1990–99: Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations in New York; 1993–94, 1998–99: President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council; 1996–97: Representative of Chile on the United Nations Security Council, including President of the Security Council in April 1996 and October 1997; 1993–95: Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen .; 1991–92: Chairman of the Social Committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Council; 1990–91: Chairman of the United Nations Third Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs; 1970–73: Executive Secretary of the Latin American Free Trade Association in Chile; Ambassador of Chile to the Andean Group; Member and Chairman of the Governing Body of the Andean Group; 1968–70: Ambassador and Adviser to the Foreign Minister of Chile on Economic and Social Affairs, responsible for multilateral issues including the ILO.
Somavía began his career as an academic. From 1967 to 1968, he was lecturer on economic and social issues for GATT's trade policy courses in Geneva. In 1971, he was appointed Professor of International Economic and Social Affairs in the Department of Political Sciences at the Catholic University of Chile, where he highlighted the ILO and its tripartite structure as a case study in international cooperation. Between 1976 and 1990, he was Founder, executive director and President of the Latin American Institute of Transnational Studies (ILET), during which time he undertook a number of studies on trade union and social movements in Mexico City and Santiago. From 1996 to 1999, Mr. Somavia was chairman of the Board of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). Throughout his career, he has written and lectured widely on trade issues and labour and human rights and holds numerous citations and awards for his work in the areas of peace, human rights and social development.
Somavía has always shown a strong interest in development cooperation and economic and social affairs. During the late 1960s, while working in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), he promoted the participation of developing countries in the Kennedy Round. From 1970 to 1973, Mr. Somavía served as Member and chairman of the Board of the Andean Development Corporation in Caracas and worked intensively in favour of regional integration. He was also a Member of the executive committee of the International Foundation for Development Alternatives in Nyon, Switzerland from 1977 to 1995 and has been on the Advisory Committee of Development Dialogue (published by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation) for more than 25 years.